In my astrology learning, I've faced different approaches and ideas, some more "spiritual" or esoteric, other more rational or even "scientific". Many astrologers claim that astrology has the right to be considered a science, since its technique is based on mathematical calculations and its mechanism, on the magnetic or gravitational influence of the celestial bodies over us (idea that makes science people kick up like spoiled children.) Although I think the magnetism theory makes some sense, I am not part of its defenders group.
The issue astrology/science is old and never seems to be clarified. I don't really believe in astrology as being a science – at least you want to consider it as a human science, like philosophy or psychology, which is a possibility. Ok, astrology is based in statistics and observation, in something "real" - we need astronomical data to set up a chart. However, it's not of my interest to use scientific arguments to justify astrology for the skeptics. Much was already written. There's nothing to prove – and astrology, in spite of its oppositors, has continued to grow in popularity. I know that astrology "works" – I have seen it. How it happens, I, as an astrologer and not a scientist, really can't explain. My job is to identify and interpret how the positions I see in the sky can affect us. When the science people finally open their minds to the astrological reality and start their researches in this direction, possibly we'll know in a not distant future what makes astrology to be what it is.
Astrology is as an art. Each astrologer takes the symbols he sees and interprets them according to his own vision and understanding of the world. It's like to create music, or a painting. Give the same tools – brushes, paints, canvas – and the same theme to different artists and you'll see arise different artworks. Same with astrology. It has a material body – techniques, calculations – and a spiritual one – our own vision of how the symbols interact and compose a life’s scenario. Symbols have a singular way to communicate, and you not always can read them verbally. It is necessary some degree of sensitivity, or intuition. Intuition is not a supernatural thing; is when you know what a thing "is" without having defined it rationally. Take an astrology handbook and you'll learn that Neptune means fantasy, confusion, escapism. But to know these meanings it is not enough. It's necessary to see Neptune around you, to sense and recognize it. Talk to Neptune. He can be in your dreams, in the sea smell, in transparent veils, in the morning fog. In everything mysterious and magic, in everything you cannot see but try to guess with your imagination and heart. Nobody else will see Neptune the way you do. And this is what makes each astrologer unique.
Sensing astrology is the best way to understand it. In the nature around you, in the people, inside you. Astrology is something profoundly human, and like anything human, does not present exact responses, it cannot be measured. People are not machines, they are life and movement.
image: Hope, Takamura Megumi (Corbis)
